I finally finished reading The Age of Scorpius while sober
and I am upset. I have three gigantic complaints, all of them relating to the women in Rieka's life. I feel I should give a warning since I will be talking at the sexual assault mentioned in the book
•Reika's mom: this character literally has no name and it's HEAVILY implied to have been raped by Blaine (the big bad guy). By not giving her a name, the reader is meant to understand that this character doesn't matter, and we shouldn't care about her (I think that goes without saying). I don't have a problem with rape in media, but the way it's handled in this book is simply disgusting. When Rieka's parentage is discussed, Avia wonders if Blaine assaulted their mom, and no other character offers any other possible explanation. For all the characters know, the encounter could have been 100% consensual but no one even attempts to offer any other explanation. This is the author letting us know that the assault is actually what happened. I struggle to understand why Audra Winter would have the villain rape the only unnamed female character who is important to the plot. I struggle to understand what she wanted to communicate. I am BAFFLED that I haven't seen ANYONE on ANY PLATFORM talk about this.
•Avia: Avia only exists to be bullied; she will make reasonable comments ("If you had told me about this earlier, I could have done something about it") and everyone, including characters who have just met her, will ask her to shut the fuck up and to stop being such a gigantic bitch. Avia can be curt and insulting at times, but she overall reads as the voice of reason who no one wants to hear; as an older sister who genuinely cares about her younger sister but also deals with emotions she was never taught how to deal with by other means other than roughness. I honestly hope that Audra doesn't have an older sister. I'm not even joking.
•Kaia: Avia's biggest bully is Kaia. Whereas the nameless mother only exists to be source of trauma for Rieka vía her constant chastising and disappointment, Kaia only exists to be a surrogate mother to Rieka vía "comforting" and "giving permission" to Rieka to express herself... which the prose expresses as being a bitch at anything Avia says. That's the entire extend of her character. Kaia is the only person of color in the entire book, and I'm baffled at how bad her character is handled.
I first read this book while intoxicated and skipping through the boring bits, and it was fun to read like that. I wrote the first chapters of my spitefic from what I remembered on that first reading
now I'm just insulted. I have other complaints but nothing that compares to the level of disgustingness I've already commented on
now that I'm done with the book, I will keep writing my stupid spitefic because I honestly feel these characters were not done justice in the book
I can't promise these characters will be pleasant or even good people, but they will at least be realized characters. at the bare minimum, they will have a lot more going on than whatever Audra Winters gave them or I'll die trying (#AviaDidNothingWrong)
I have now exited my torture chamber, my friends, my acquaintances, my fanfic rivals (lol), and I am off to greener pastures
I will be dropping a new chapter today or tomorrow, for those who care (thank you for caring, by the way, it does mean a lot)
(here's an updated version of this review, if it can be called a review)